INSIGHT
LOCAL BY DEZZIGN
By Carl Gutzeit
Managing director Carl Gutzeit shares some of Dezzi’ s insights, frustrations, and joys of being one of only two local full production OEMs for the yellow metals industry.
Started in 1973 as a transport company on the beautiful KwaZulu-Natal South Coast, Desmond Equipment quickly built up a great reputation for providing fast, friendly, reliable transport services to local businesses, farmers, mines, and construction companies. As their fleet grew to include earthmoving, construction, and agricultural vehicles, Dezzi( as they became known), realised there was a gap in the market for locally manufactured yellow metal equipment.
The year 1996 saw the first Dezzi front-end loader roll out of the factory, with Dezzi gaining 3 % of the South African market share within the next two years. Over the next two decades, this family-owned business became a wellrespected player in the industry for sub-Saharan Africa.
Service is the key driver for everything that is done at Dezzi and has formed the core of the way the company has been run over the past four decades. At Dezzi, service levels are not only deemed to be a priority, it is something that is lived from director level down to the cleaning staff.
One of the major contributing factors in its growth and ability to build a loyal customer base has been the ability to maintain a high level of service throughout the business.
Challenges are plentiful and wide-ranging in the OEM game here on the southern part of Africa, with one of the major challenges being the volatility of the rand and its continual decline in value against the major world currencies, coupled with very limited or non-existing governmental protection against low-cost Asian imports. With the South African yellow metal equipment industry having some of the least protection against foreign imports on a global scale, local OEMs have even fewer advantages compared to the larger international brands.
Dezzi thrives in approaching these challenges with a plan to not only overcome them, but to use them to its advantage. With its clients being based across an exceptionally large geographical area, it has built a landing strip adjacent to its factory, with two aeroplanes available to fly parts, technical support, or any other service needed by a client to ensure machine downtime is kept to a minimum.
With engines, transmissions, and axles, it took the approach of only using best-of-breed and building solid relationships with suppliers, allowing it to negotiate great deals on these essential components.
Advantages of being an OEM can be many if you approach it with the correct mindset and that is exactly what Dezzi has done.
Dezzi
From left: Carl Gutzeit( managing director) and Mike Jackson( general manager).
From the start, it took the approach of getting to know
and understand its customers’ needs, wants, and most importantly, their pains around yellow metal machines. Through working closely with its customers throughout the R & D process and involving the customers in vehicle testing, have enabled Dezzi to consistently produce a new product every year— a vehicle that is‘ Built Africa Tough’.
A further advantage of being an OEM means that Dezzi is not reliant on someone else for availability or quality of spares for the machines sold. With a factory over 11 000m ² comprising office space, a drawings department, stores, an engineering department( with CNC machining centres), fabrication shop with profile cutters, bending, welding CO 2 machines’ division for cab and body manufacturing, assembly shop, sandblasting and paint shop, as well as a test track for testing machines, Dezzi has the capacity to not only carry a large stock of spares, but if needed, the ability to manufacture spare parts on site.
A main advantage of being an OEM is that you have total control over your business; you decide on the geographical area of where to market your product; development and design changes are in your hands— you are not dictated by someone else. It enables you to work a lot closer with your clients, thereby giving you the ability to adapt your product to their needs.
After 45 years of taming the South African yellow metals market, Dezzi has its sights firmly set on expanding further into Africa. With a distributor network already in place across South Africa, Zambia, and Mozambique and newly appointed distributors in Tanzania, Malawi, and Zimbabwe, the expression“ Dezzi— that name rings a bell” will be heard throughout Africa. ■
42
AUGUST 2018